Guitar Solo

I’ve been here several times to get supplies for my guitar and to shop for new guitars/​ukeleles. I really want to like this store, which is why I keep going back — it’s convenient to my place, has a nice selection of sheet music, and has several guitars and ukes to try out. Unfortunately, I always leave the place feeling bad. I admit I’m not particularly knowledgeable about guitars or ukes, and perhaps that’s why I’m treated with such disdain when I’m there. Yes, the staff may be knowledgeable, but it is so pretentious that I’m afraid to ask any questions. Tip: if you’re looking for a ukelele, I highly suggest checking out Aloha Warehouse instead. It has a significantly better selection of ukeleles, and the staff/​owners are actually nice and helpful.

I sat down to try out one of their guitars and the owner told me not to touch even though one of the other customers had just played that same guitar. Guess he thought I didn’t look like I was going to buy it.

Nice Shop — cool guitars and helpful staff

Very nice selection of acoustics, ukele’s, mandolins… no balaikas though. Lots of sheet musics targeted for the guitar or stringed instrument players. Very knowledgeable folks. Soma is an area difficult to park in, but today, parking karma was with me and gave a spot with the-​the-​three hours left on the meter. I just about broke out playing Do You Feel Like I Do by Frampton (OK that ages me, right there… like i care). If you want knowledgeable info, drop by here.

Great guitar store. I bought some sheet music for my nephew here and they had a pretty good selection. Slight problem with the card reader at check out, but it was sorted eventually.

I am a guitar player. This place has stuff I need and they help me to find stuff I don’t know I need. I give them 5 stars. Check it out!

I liked to shop but didn’t buy anything this time. However, I’ll be back!
To those that say the classical musicians are a dying breed I would add that so are people with talent in general. Especially those with talents that are developed with years of practice. It’s the mediocratic homogenization that this current technological modernization brings about. The best way to fight that is for all to make music and craft and make things by hand. This shop is a boon to that idea.
I would rather have someone print a guitar on a 3D printer and slap on some fishing line than even touch garage band and produce some heartless glossy mess!
But to get back to the review about this shop. Go there and feel what can be done with a lot of love and care.

Having shopped at a few other stores for acoustic guitars, I thought I’d give GSP a try. They did seem to have great rating.
I left in about fifteen minutes feeling a little bummed out by the staff’s lack of enthusiasm and weak variety of the inventory. It might be just me :)

I started learning guitar about a year ago. My strings were fine until two days ago – I snapped my G-​string (Don’t you just hate it when your G-​strings snapped for no reason?)
I was so bummed!
I tried stringing it on my own, but I didn’t succeed. I Unilocaled for places in the city that string guitars, and came to this place. I gave them a call to make sure they string guitars, and yup! They do. The guy on the phone (I forgot to ask his name) was the same guy who helped me stringing my guitar.
When I arrived at the place around 2pm, he was actually about to eat his lunch. I told him I could wait, but he said it’s okay. I thought he would be all grumpy about it, but nope. He was EXTREMELY nice and helpful. He told me he has played guitar since before I was born, and we had some nice chat about guitars.
I got a set of new strings and the labor fee for stringing it, for under $ 20.
I would definitely come back to this place again for future guitar-​related things.

WHOA! This place is a hidden gem! Guitars galore as well as a HUGE selection of picks and music books. Nice guy working behind the counter too.

Great place to change the strings of your guitar they just charge $ 10! Plus the strings but a lot lower if you go to Guitar Center they charge $ 25 I believe plus strings… the only thing are the prices of their product are higher then other guitar places and I wish they offer guitar lessons that would be great! But yes I recommend if you need the strings changed this is the right place! Btw the guy I think is the owner is very friendly.

Way over-​rated. Of course SOMA douche bags would consider this legit. You’d expect an older crew to be less hipster Mission emo-​douchey than this, but wow, they bring it to a new level. What could have been.

I visited Guitar Solo 2 years ago but get used to Unilocal reviews only recently. At that time I planned to open a guitar store and visited some 50 stores in California in one week. I can tell that those guys were the nicest and more knowledgeable by far. They’re mainly into classical guitars but have some steel acoustic for a good price too. I wouldn’t buy a classical guitar anywhere else in the Bay area! And they also have self-​produced CD at the store (or at least they did two years ago).
Good knowledge and friendly attitude never lie!

I bought my ukulele here! It was my very first instrument, so after a few months of shopping around and trying them out in stores, we were on the last day of a trip to San Francisco and stopped by Guitar Solo after a quick Unilocal search while having breakfast at Blue Bottle.
I was so pleasantly surprised — I bought a beautiful Lanikai Koa Tenor Ukulele and have been teaching myself for the past few months. The price was in keeping with what I’d seen elsewhere and the man in the store happily recommended a simple beginner tuner and some replacement strings. He helped me pick a case and made sure I got the best quality one he had in stock.
The only issue we had here was at the POS — I was charged 3 separate times for everything I purchased. I actually had only paid about $ 70 when I realized he hadn’t even charged me for the instrument. I would never have felt right not paying for something, even accidentally, that I considered an investment.
Helpful and welcoming, great selection of beautiful instruments — awesome store.

i just started taking guitar lessons and came here because it’s close to my office. what i found was a tiny shop that’s packed with a whole lotta guitars and guitar love!
the guys that work here are so sweet and patient and helpful. even though they charge a bit more than online, i’d rather give my money to the neighborhood shop with the big heart.
the faceless click that save you money online won’t tune your guitar, give you advice, or strum a little spanish song when you walk in the door like these guitar softies can.
hearts!

For a guitar player, this is MECCA! You can find just about anything relating to
guitar here at this store: books, dvds, cds, instruments, accesories, and even
teacher referrals. Been buying from this store since 1995 and wouldn’t
hesitate to recommend it to beginners thru professional players. Though not
an electric guitar shop, there are some materials related, but pretty much all
acoustic instruments. Check it out!

Guitarists in San Francisco are absolutely lucky to have this store within city limits.
It’s so very, very rare to see a store that caters to this niche market: the acoustic and/​or classical guitarist. And they cater to that market well. No, I am not a nylon string guitarist, but I am nothing but impressed by their selection of DVDs, CDs, instructional books, accessories, etc. When studying a «non-​rock» genre of guitar, I come here first. Not Guitar Center, not Rocker Guitars, not even Amazon. Were I more qualified, I would love to review their guitars. For what it’s worth, as a rock and roll electric guitarist, I find their selection of acoustic/​classical guitars very satisfying.
Really, the only problem is they aren’t open very late, which makes it difficult to get to the store, even for the CalTrain commute like me. But they’re open on the weekends, and the store is more than worth the effort to go there.

Have used their mail order service for close to 20 years. Before the advent of the internet, they were basically THE place to get sheet music, strings and many other classical guitar related things. The shop itself has moved a few times within that time but I was fortunate enough to live in the area for some time to be able to stop by and try some fine guitars that they always had at the shop.
The last time I visited was about a year ago and I purchased my beater guitar there for not much more than $ 200! It sounds far better than much more expensive ones you get at national chains. Of course, they carry some of the best luthier built guitars you can buy in the bay area other than going directly to those luthiers.
They also carry some rare and out of print guitar recordings. They may be a bit overpriced but over the years, I found some real gems there. Speaking of price, you can probably get strings cheaper at other internet based shops but for fine guitars, I think their prices are fair especially considering they’re pretty much the only place in the area that carries good selection.
If you’re in the market for fine classical and flamenco guitars (even steel string acoustic), you won’t regret visiting the shop. It’s somewhat near AT&T park but hard to find if you don’t know the area so you might want to googlemap it or call them ahead.

Definitely one of the more interesting selections of classical guitars in the bay area. Martin maybe the only orthodox brand they have here. Mostly obscure and hard to find brands. Was helping a friend find an acoustic and tried out smoe of the Larivee and Santa Cruz models. Damn I wish I had 5−10k burning a hole in my pocket to pick one up.

So I took Unilocaler’s advise again ( Unilocalers can all chime in now & say «smart move»). wink
After reading the Guitar Center reviews I headed to Guitar Solo. Just a tip, if you go to Safeway and buy five dollars worth you can get free parking… right across from Guitar Solo — nice!
I needed new strings for my classical, a strap and a tunner… these guys are super nice, friendly and really helpful. They strung the guitar, a nice professional job that would have taken me hours of pain was done in 20 minutes.
I might even get a new band member since one of them plays guitar (obviously) and bass. I told him I was looking for another guitar player since I’m mostly a singer.
Sweet Deal! I walked in to get guitar strings, tunner and strap and walked out with all of that plus a potencial a new band member!
SWEET!